Seventeen
by JazzyCat
Summary: Sometimes it was so easy to forget that they were both still just seventeen.


After the fight, Vaan took one look at the blood on his hands and threw up. Penelo had started crying a few moments earlier and once Vaan's stomach had been emptied of its contents he couldn't help but do the same, wiping his mouth with the linen cuff of his sleeve.

The young girl crouched beside her friend and tried to check his wounds through her blurry eyes, but could see nothing and settled instead for kneeling there with her hands on his shoulder to steady them both.

Neither could bear to look to the dead man lying only a few feet away.

Basch, a seasoned warrior, looked on sympathetically, remembering his first kill, and how devastated he had been for months afterwards, and how he had never been the same again. He liked to sugarcoat it and say he "grew up" that day, into the knight he had become. But he knew that was a bold-faced lie as he stared at the two weeping teens.

Balthier adjusted his own cuffs after seeing Vaan soiling his. His face held a look of disgust, though he felt nothing more than shame and regret, and couldn't bear to watch the scene unfolding in front of him, instead looking to his pirating partner, Fran.

Fran showed no emotion, but only stared on in that observant Viera way, with her eyes blinking fast and her head cocked slightly to the left. Her body was stiff and just as much an enigma has her face.

And Ashe paid the pair no mind, instead going through the pockets of the dead for a potion, refusing to acknowledge what she—what her companions—had just done.

It was one thing to slay a beast, and another entirely to kill a man. The pirates, the princess, and her knight had long since learned and accepted this.

But the orphans—those without families, those who could hardly take care of themselves, the young ones who had come along for the adventure, and perhaps a little profit so they might eat again—had not been well-prepared for their journey.

The four exchanged looks, all thinking similarly, though none needed say it.

As the self-proclaimed "adults" of the group, the ones who called the shots, they felt guilty, and responsible for the tears falling in the sand at their feet.

When they allowed Vaan and Penelo to come along, they had knowingly agreed to be mentors and guardians for the pair where their parents could not. And seeing them now, all knew that they had failed in that duty.

Vaan had been hailed by Balthier to have potential. It went unnoticed by none that he was a thick-headed moron, but with that recognition came the knowledge that he possessed a strong moral sense and that stupid kind of courage that few wielded well. He never gave up, and though many of his fights were started by no one but himself, it was clear that he picked them well (for the most part). Balthier and Basch also commended him for his loyalty to Penelo. They had seen the number of times he'd thrown himself in the way of a sword or a bullet to keep her safe, and that fire in his eyes when time came to protect her. That was, after all, the sign of a true man.

Penelo returned his loyalty twofold, putting his dreams before her own, following him across Ivalice and back just to be with him. Her mothering disposition and quiet sort of wisdom were beyond her years, and her selflessness was unlimited. She knew when to walk away from a fight, but when Vaan was involved, she was unable to, instead choosing to fight right by his side, and showing a large repertoire of battle skills that not even _she_ knew she had. Her magic had grown immensely as well, and nothing bad could be said about her singing and dancing; it kept the boring nights away.

The two of them had shown such maturity that sometimes age was disregarded among the six of them, and it wasn't until moments like this, where the two strong, intelligent (albeit hot-headed, in Vaan's case) orphans were curled into themselves and shedding tears for a fallen _enemy_ that the other four realized; the blame fell upon each and every one of them.

Sometimes they forgot that 'seventeen' was still a child.


End file.
